Welcome to YouGov. The hk.yougov.com website (the "Website") and the YouGov mobile application(s) currently available on the Apple AppStore and Google Play e-stores (the “App”) are owned, operated and provided by Consilium Limited (with company number 1307830 whose registered office is at 9/F, Skyway Centre, 23 Queen’s Road West, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong) (referred to as "YouGov", “we”, “our” or “us”).

Use of the Website and App including survey pages and content to which you may be directed (together the "YouGov WebPages") and membership of the consumer research panel set up and administered by YouGov (the "YouGov Panel") and participation in any YouGov research activities as described in our Privacy and Cookies Policy ("YouGov Activities") is governed by these terms and conditions of use (the "Terms").

Our group companies located in other countries operate panels in their respective countries for which different terms apply. If you are not registering with the YouGov Panel operated by YouGov Plc, please refer to the website of the panel operated by the relevant YouGov group company.

Please see our Privacy and Cookie Policy to understand how and why we collect your personal data, with whom we share it and the rights and choices you have over that data.

1. Acknowledgement and acceptance

1.1. By ticking 'I agree' during the process to register your participation as a member of a YouGov Panel ("Member"), or by participating in a YouGov Activity or by simply accessing and using the YouGov WebPages, you agree to be bound by these Terms. Should you not wish to accept these Terms, you must exit the YouGov WebPages immediately and/or or cease participation in the YouGov Panel or YouGov Activities.

1.2. YouGov reserves the right from time to time, to modify or amend these Terms or any part of them. Your continued use of the YouGov WebPages or continued participation in the YouGov Panel or the YouGov Activities once the changes take effect shall constitute an affirmative acknowledgement of any modification and your continued agreement to be bound by the modified Terms.

2. Terms of participation

2.1. YouGov Registration Process for YouGov Panel Members

2.1.1. To become a Member and to participate in a YouGov Panel, you need to register with YouGov and create a Panel Membership Profile following the registration process set out below (the "YouGov Registration Process").

2.1.2. Prospective Members must complete a YouGov registration form each time they wish to join a YouGov Panel. Registration forms include:

2.1.2.1. The form available on the Website and App, but may also include registration forms hosted on third party websites;

2.1.2.2. Registration forms hosted by YouGov and accessed via third party websites; and

2.1.2.3. Registration forms accessed via links in an email sent to you by a third party or by YouGov where you have granted permission to receive such emails from these sources.

2.1.4. During each YouGov Registration Process prospective Members will be notified of any terms in addition to these Terms which shall apply to membership of the respective YouGov Panel.

2.1.5. You have to be 18 years or older to join the YouGov Panel.

2.2. Information you provide to us

2.2.1. In return for YouGov granting you access to the YouGov WebPages and/or the ability to participate in a YouGov Panel or YouGov Activity, you agree to:

2.2.1.1. Provide true, accurate, current and complete information about yourself as prompted by the YouGov Registration Process;

2.2.1.2. Maintain and promptly update your personal membership details including the Panel Membership Profile (defined below) so as to keep it true, accurate, current and complete; and

2.2.1.3. Provide true, accurate, current and complete information about yourself as prompted by YouGov whilst participating in a YouGov Panel or YouGov Activity.

2.2.2. If you provide any information that is untrue, inaccurate, not current, incomplete or inconsistent with prior answers to identical questions, or YouGov has reasonable grounds to suspect that such information is untrue, inaccurate, not current or incomplete, YouGov has the right to suspend or terminate your current access to, use of, and/or participation in the YouGov Panel or YouGov Activities. For example, if in YouGov’s reasonable judgement your participation in YouGov Activities persistently indicates a location of residence different to the one you provided during the YouGov Registration Process, we reserve the right to suspend or terminate your membership or your participation in the YouGov Panel. This is subject to your right to refuse to answer any Panels or YouGov survey or information request.

2.3. Your Panel Membership Profile and YouGov Account

2.3.1. Once they have completed the YouGov Registration Process, Members will be provided with a profile ("Panel Membership Profile") and an account ("YouGov Account") for the YouGov Panel and those YouGov Activities for which Points (as defined below) is awarded.

2.3.2. Only one Panel Membership Profile is permitted per Member for the YouGov Panel and only one YouGov Account is permitted per Member for the YouGov Panel for which Points are awarded. Any Member found to have multiple Panel Membership Profiles and/or YouGov Accounts may have their primary and any secondary Panel Membership Profiles and/or YouGov Accounts deleted. Points earned via secondary YouGov Accounts may not be transferred. YouGov may demand proof of identity in the event of a dispute.

2.3.3. A unique email address must be used by each Member. (For example, this means that family members may not each have an account using a shared email address but must each have a separate account with a separate email address.)

2.3.4. Each Panel Membership Profile and YouGov Account must only be accessed by an individual Member, and may not be accessed by any other individual without the express permission and authorisation of YouGov. You agree to notify YouGov immediately you become aware of, or suspect any unauthorised use of your login information, Panel Membership Profile and/or YouGov Account, or any other breach of security.

2.3.5. In the event of access to your YouGov Account by another individual, YouGov reserves the right to suspend your and/or that other individual’s account until a resolution has been reached. YouGov reserves the right to reclaim any Points or other incentive earned by access of the unauthorised user.

2.3.6. Members may earn points for their YouGov Account ("Points") in the prescribed manner detailed on the YouGov WebPages, including for completing the YouGov Registration Process and for participating in the YouGov Panel and related YouGov Activities for which Points are awarded. The amount of Points that can be earned for participation in a YouGov Panel or related YouGov Activity will be notified to Members via authorised communications.

2.3.7. Unless otherwise specifically notified, Points can only be earned through following all and any instructions regarding earning Points. A Member's failure to correctly follow any required instructions or procedures may result in no Points being earned.

2.3.8. Points earned will be recorded in your YouGov Account, however no Points earned are ever available for redemption until the Member has (subject to paragraph 2.3.9 below) reached the specified fulfilment level advertised, together with details of the applicable reward(s) available, in the Account section of the Website.. If YouGov has suspended or terminated your YouGov Account for any of the reasons outlined in these Terms no Points that you have earned can be redeemed.

2.3.9. YouGov reserves the right to change the range of YouGov Activities and the YouGov Panel or related YouGov Activities for which Members may be eligible for Points and to vary the frequency of invitation to such activities. YouGov also reserves the right to alter the level of Points required before such Points can be redeemed.

2.3.10. Points may not be transferred to other YouGov Accounts nor pooled together in any manner and the sale or barter of Points is strictly prohibited. Points has no monetary value, and cannot be used for any purpose other than redeeming the designated reward.

2.3.11. YouGov may from time to time adjust a Member's YouGov Account upwards or downwards in response to errors which Members acknowledge may arise or suspected fraud, for which we have full authority.

2.3.12. YouGov reserves the right to terminate any YouGov Account that has been dormant for a period of 12 months or more. By ‘dormant’ we mean, where the Member has not participated in the YouGov Panel or any related YouGov Activity within the preceding 12 month period. YouGov will attempt to contact the Member, via their nominated email address, if their YouGov Account is at risk of termination through inactivity. In the absence of a satisfactory response, the YouGov Account will be terminated, and any unused Points will be forfeited.

2.4. Survey invitations

2.4.1. You acknowledge that:

2.4.1.1 if you register to the YouGov Panel, it is integral to your participation that we are able to send you emails and notifications inviting you to participate in surveys for research projects, whether via the Website or App or in person; and

2.4.1.2 if you wish to stop receiving such emails and notifications, you may terminate your membership in accordance with paragraph 6.1 of these Terms.

3. Prize polls

3.1. YouGov may ask you to participate in YouGov Activities which will enter you into a prize draw or may permit you to use your Points to enter into a prize draw. Such draws will be governed by the respective terms and conditions specified and displayed for each prize draw.

4. Referral Links

4.1. You may be able to earn extra Points by referring friends and family to the YouGov Panel, provided they join using a unique link that we provide to you for making referrals (“Referral Link”). The conditions attached to the awarding of such extra Points are explained in the Account section of the Website and App. When referring new panel Members, you agree to not pose as or claim to represent YouGov and you will not attempt to mislead or deceive prospective Members into using your Referral Link to join. You agree to make clear to any prospective Members you refer that they will be using your unique Referral Link and that you will receive Points if they join the YouGov panel via your Referral Link.

5. User Content

5.1. Use of the YouGov WebPages and participation in YouGov Activities or the YouGov Panel may involve you submitting survey responses and other content to us ("User Content") which may be visible to other users of the YouGov WebPages.

5.2. You acknowledge that User Content provided by you is your sole responsibility. This means that you, and not YouGov, are entirely responsible for all User Content you upload, post, link to, email or otherwise transmit via your use of the YouGov WebPages or your participation in any of the YouGov Activities or the YouGov Panel.

5.3. YouGov does not control or pre-screen the User Content posted on the YouGov WebPages and does not guarantee the accuracy, integrity or quality of such User Content, and therefore assumes no liability in respect of the User Content.

5.4. You understand that by using the YouGov WebPages, you may be exposed to User Content, and you agree that you must evaluate, and bear, all risks associated with the use of any User Content, including any reliance on its accuracy, completeness, or usefulness. Notwithstanding the foregoing YouGov shall have the right in their sole discretion to refuse, edit, move or remove any such User Content, whether or not that content violates these Terms.

5.5. With respect to all User Content you elect to transmit to us (including User Content you post on the YouGov WebPages), you grant YouGov a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive licence (with the right to sublicense) to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, edit, publish, translate, create derivative works from, exploit, perform and display such User Content (in whole or part) throughout the world and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or later developed, for any purposes.

5.6. In the course of using the YouGov WebPages and/or participating in YouGov Activities or the YouGov Panel, you agree not to:

5.6.1. Upload, post, link to, email or otherwise transmit any information that is unlawful in any way in the United States of America, or in the State or country in which you reside;

5.6.2 Upload, post, link to, email or otherwise transmit any information that is defamatory, abusive, defamatory, threatening, harassing, obscene, discriminatory, likely to cause distress, intended to incite hatred or is otherwise objectionable as determined by us in our sole discretion;

5.6.3. Impersonate any person (whether living or dead) or entity;

5.6.4. Forge headers or otherwise manipulate identities in order to disguise the origin of any content transmitted through the YouGov WebPages or provided through participation in YouGov Activities or the YouGov Panel;

5.6.5. Upload, post, link to, or otherwise transmit any information that you do not have a right to transmit;

5.6.7. Upload, post, link to, email or otherwise transmit any material that contains software viruses or any other computer, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment;

5.6.8. Collect or store personal data about other individuals; or

5.6.9. Attempt to submit more than one vote per survey or do any other act that may affect the validity of any result obtained through any YouGov Activity or the YouGov Panel.

6. Terminating your membership

6.1. If you no longer wish to be a Member please contact YouGov. YouGov will terminate your account and cease to contact you within 7 days of receiving notice from you that you wish to terminate you membership. You therefore acknowledge and agree that if you terminate your membership you may receive emails from YouGov for a period of 7 days after the date of your notice. If you decide to terminate using the ‘Unsubscribe’ option on your YouGov Account page, you will retain any Points previously earned, you will cease to receive emails and notifications from YouGov and be unable to participate in the YouGov Panel or in any YouGov Activities unless and until you reactivate your YouGov Account. If you request the erasure of your YouGov Account you will forfeit all Points previously earned and be unable to reactivate your YouGov Account. We will erase all records as requested except to the extent local law requires retention of certain data in connection with business record retention requirements.

6.2. You agree that YouGov, in its sole discretion, may terminate or suspend your YouGov Membership, or participation in any YouGov Activities or the YouGov Panel, or remove or discard any User Content, for any reason, including, without limitation, for lack of use, or if YouGov believed that you have violated or acted inconsistently with the letter or spirit of these Terms.

6.3. You agree that YouGov may terminate your access to YouGov Activities or the YouGov Panel under any provision of these Terms without notice, and acknowledge and agree that YouGov may immediately deactivate your registration as a Member and/or bar access to YouGov Activities and the YouGov Panel. Further, you agree that YouGov shall not be liable to you or any third-party for any termination of your access to the YouGov Activities or the YouGov Panel.

6.4. YouGov reserves the right to terminate the YouGov Panel, or YouGov WebPages at any time. In such a case and unless specified otherwise, no YouGov Account Points will be redeemable by any Members.

7. Your obligation to reimburse us

7.1. You hereby agree to fully reimburse YouGov and its directors, officers, employees and agents from and against any and all liability, damages, losses, claims (including reasonable legal fees) each of them suffers or incurs resulting in any way from your use of the YouGov WebPages, the provision of User Content or your participation in the YouGov Activities or the YouGov Panel or resulting from any breach of these Terms whether such breach is carried out by you or by any other person through your Panel Membership Profile or YouGov Account as a result of your negligence.

8. Third party websites

8.1. Links included within the YouGov WebPages may let you leave the YouGov WebPages and enter into other website(s) ("Linked Site(s)"). The Linked Sites are not under the control of YouGov and YouGov is not responsibility and nor shall it be liable for the contents of any Linked Sites or any links contained in a linked site or any changes or updates to such sites. YouGov is not responsible for webcasting or any other form of transmission received from any Linked Site. YouGov is only providing these links to you as a convenience and the inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement by YouGov of the site or any association with their operators.

9. Intellectual property

9.1. The Website and App and all pages and content within the YouGov WebPages, including, but not limited to, text, graphics, audio, video, photographs, software, inventions, surveys, logos or other materials (“Materials”) are the intellectual property of, or are authorised for use by, YouGov and its licensors, business partners and affiliates, including all trademarks, service marks, copyrights, patents, database rights and trade secrets contained therein. The compilation, organisation and display of the content as well as all software and inventions used on and in connection with the YouGov WebPages are the exclusive property of YouGov. Except as expressly permitted in these Terms, you may not modify, copy, reproduce, create derivative works, republish, display, upload, post, transmit, distribute or use in any way content available on the Website or App without the prior written consent of YouGov.

10.Other important terms

10.1. Notices relating to these Terms. All notices given by YouGov to Members will be sent to their designated email address provided by them during the YouGov Registration Process.

10.2 If a court finds part of these Terms illegal or otherwise invalid, the rest will continue in force. Each of the paragraphs of these Terms operates separately. If any court or relevant authority decides that any of them are unlawful, the remaining paragraphs will remain in full force and effect.

10.3 Reliance on these Terms. We intend to rely on these written Terms and any document expressly referred to in them in relation to the subject matter of any agreement between us. We and you will be legally bound by these Terms.

10.4 Events or circumstances beyond our reasonable control. If we are prevented or delayed from complying with our obligations under these Terms by anything you (or anyone acting on your behalf) does or fails to do or due to events or circumstances beyond our reasonable control, our inability or delay in performing our obligations will not be deemed to be in breach of these Terms. Examples of such events and circumstances include fire, flood and other acts of God, strikes, trade disputes, lock outs, restrictions of imports or exports, riot, accident, disruption to energy supplies, civil commotion, acts of terrorism or war.

10.5 References to ‘including’ and other similar expressions. In these Terms, words that appear after the expression ‘include’, ‘including’, ‘other’, ‘for example’, ‘such as’ or ‘in particular’ (or any similar expression) will not limit the meaning of the words appearing before such expression.

10.6 We may transfer this Agreement to someone else. We may transfer our rights and obligations under these Terms to another organisation. We will use commercially reasonable efforts to contact you to let you know of such transfer. If you are unhappy with the transfer you may contact us to end your membership within 14 days of us telling you about the transfer.

10.7 You need our consent to transfer your rights to someone else. You may only transfer your rights or your obligations under these terms to another person if we agree to this in writing.

10.8 Nobody else has any rights under these Terms. The agreement made under these Terms is between you and us. No other person shall have any rights to enforce any of its terms. Neither of us will need to get the agreement of any other person in order to end the agreement between us or to make any changes to these Terms.

10.9 Language. These Terms may be presented to you in more than one language. However, the English language version of these Terms shall prevail. Any agreement between us will be concluded in English.

10.10 Even if we delay in enforcing a Contract, we can still enforce it later. If we do not insist immediately that you do anything you are required to do under these Terms, or if we delay in taking steps against you in respect of your breaking the Contract, that will not mean that you do not have to do those things and it will not prevent us taking steps against you at a later date.

10.11 The laws that apply to these Terms, where you may bring legal proceedings and class action waiver.

This Agreement is governed by and shall be construed in accordance with the laws of Hong Kong, the principal place of business of YouGov, without giving effect to any principles of conflicts of law. You agree to bring any claims against YouGov, exclusively in the courts of Hong Kong. Unless both you and YouGov agree, no arbitrator or judge may consolidate more than one person's claims or otherwise preside over any form of a representative or class proceeding.

YouGov is an ethical user of personal data. Without the trust of everyone who answers our questions, we could not produce the research that helps our clients make better decisions. The security of your personal data is important to us, too.

We’ve tried to make the privacy and cookies notice that follows as easy to read as possible. If anything in here is unclear, please contact us at dataprotection@yougov.com, and we’ll be happy to clear it up.

What this notice covers

As an organisation that relies on the use of personal data, YouGov is responsible for using your data in a responsible and safe way, and that starts with clearly telling you how we collect, use and protect your personal data. This privacy and cookies notice sets out:

What kind of personal data we may collect from you;

How and why we collect and use your personal data;

Why we may share personal data within YouGov and with other organisations; and

The rights and choices you have when it comes to your personal data.

YouGov is made up of a number of companies, each of which separately controls the data provided to it by our panellists and those who otherwise participate in surveys or browse our website (“user”). If you are a user or panellist who registered in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, P.R. China, Consilium Limited (referred to as “we”, “us”, “our” or “YouGov”) is the controller of your personal data. This means we choose why and how that data is processed. We are based at 9/F, Skyway Centre, 23 Queen’s Road West, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, P.R. China.

In this section we explain what personal data we may collect when you become a YouGov member, use our website and participate in surveys, as well as data that we may collect from other sources

Data that we collect from you

When you interact with our website or take part in YouGov surveys, you provide us with the data that powers our business. While there are certain data that you must provide in order to use some of our services, such as account details when you join YouGov, you also control how much data you share with us. Whether you only want to complete certain surveys, or all of them – it’s your choice.

We will only retain your personal data for as long as we need to in order to fulfil the uses we describe in this notice (unless you ask us to delete your data, which is explained in the section about your rights). Please note that we may transfer your information anywhere inside of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, P.R. China, and transfer it to group companies and service providers located in other countries.

Please note that refusing to provide certain information may impact your ability to join YouGov and take part in surveys, and that by asking us to delete your personal data you will no longer be able to participate in surveys.

When you register with YouGov, we collect:

Contact details such as your name, email and postal address

Demographic data, such as your age, gender, and general economic and household information

Your account login details, which will be your email address and the password that you have chosen

Referral partner IDs, if you arrived on our website by clicking a ‘Join YouGov’ advertisement online, or a link in an email from one of our recruitment partners (we only use this to track recruitment effectiveness and to pay our partners)

Your Facebook ‘Likes’, but only if you choose to register with YouGov using Facebook Connect and give Facebook permission to share this information with us during that process

When you answer questions in surveys, or on our website or mobile apps, we collect:

Your opinions on topical issues, companies and brands

Information about your behaviours, for example what shops you like to shop in, what TV shows you have recently watched, or what kind of things you own

Device and browser “metadata” (basically an audit trail of your device and browser use), including IP address, the make, model and operating system of the device you have used and browser type (this data is collected automatically when you answer questions in surveys or browse our website or mobile apps)

If you have agreed to download tracking software (you will have been specifically invited to do this, it doesn’t happen automatically), we collect:

Your geolocation data, showing where you have been while carrying your mobile device

Device and browser metadata

Information about websites you have visited, which applications you have downloaded onto your computer and mobile devices, and how and when you use them (we never collect any information you enter into login and password fields when browsing the internet)

If you have been invited to participate in online or in-person qualitative research, we collect:

Your opinions on the topics that the research is exploring

We may also record these interviews with you, but in such cases you will be given full information about the research project and the opportunity not to participate

When you contact us or interact with our website or social media pages, we collect:

Any personal data that you may provide about yourself, including your name and contact details and the conversation history of our communications with you

Any comments you make on our website or social media pages, and whether you have chosen to ‘follow’ any other YouGov member on our website

When you redeem points, we collect:

Your bank account details so we can pay you

Sensitive personal data

Some of the data that you provide us may be considered to be ‘sensitive’ under applicable data protection laws, such as your racial or ethnic origin, religious beliefs or information concerning your health or sexual orientation. For example, during a survey we may ask whether you regard yourself as belonging to a particular race or religion. We use this information in the same way we use other information we collect, but the law may require that we have your consent to collect and use it.

When you join the YouGov panel, you are prompted to check a box confirming that you agree to the privacy notice and terms and conditions governing your YouGov membership. By checking that box and continuing your registration, you are consenting to sharing sensitive personal data with us, and to us processing, disclosing or transferring this information in accordance with this privacy and cookies notice. If you are not a member of YouGov’s panel, you will give your consent by answering the relevant questions within our surveys.

Personal data collected from other sources

We may also use personal data you have shared with us to derive additional information from other sources:

Public sources: for example, we may compare your postcode against public registers to determine that you live in a certain province, city or country.

Other companies that sell data: we may purchase data from companies that sell certain types of data that are valuable to us. In these cases, we will either match the data ourselves, or will pass personal data to these companies to enable them to match it on our behalf before passing it back to us. As with our other service providers, we have contractual safeguards in place to ensure that these companies delete the data once the match has been completed and do not disclose or use the data for any other purpose.

You may still receive invitations to participate in our research activities if you have not joined YouGov. In these cases we will have received your email address either from a client, or we’ll have acquired it from an organisation that maintains databases of contact details so that companies like YouGov can contact you. We only send emails where we have guarantees from those providing the email addresses that the recipient (that’s you) has agreed to receive third-party (e.g. from YouGov) communications, and we will always tell you where we’ve got your details from and give you the option to opt-out of receiving further emails from us.

In this section we explain how and why we use your personal data, the choices you have over how your data is used, and which other organisations we share it with.

Uses of personal data for basic market research

We use the data that you share with us, or that we receive from the other sources mentioned above, to give you the best experience possible, and to provide useful research for our clients. The uses we describe below form the basic agreement we have with our panellists.

We use personal data to…

For example…

Register, authenticate and administer your account

If you register with the YouGov panel, we will use your email address and password to create your account and authenticate your identity each time you log on, and your account details to help us to answer your questions when you contact us

Select and invite you to participate in YouGov’s research activities

If a client wanted to know what people in a certain region and demographic think about soft drinks, we will use your postcode and other demographic data to determine whether you qualify for a particular project, and then use your name and email address to invite you to participate in a survey

Credit you with the points and rewards that you earn from participating in research opportunities

We will use your contact details to tell you if you have won a prize draw, and your bank account details to pay you if you convert your points into money

Produce aggregated and anonymous research for our clients

Once we’ve gathered your survey answers, we combine them with answers from other respondents and turn them into valuable insights for our clients, either in the form of statistical spreadsheets or aggregated reports. Some of your answers go directly into our major global brand tracking product (BrandIndex) and our segmentation and planning tool (Profiles). Our clients access these tools to create their own aggregated insights – they don’t see anything that identifies you

We may provide our clients with spreadsheets that contain each of your survey answers; these data sets are not aggregated but do not reveal your identity and recipients are contractually bound to not attempt to re-identify the individuals who provided the answers

Create articles and other content for our website

We use survey responses to write interesting articles that may be published on our website or included in news articles on third party websites

Develop and improve our services

We use your survey responses to improve our research tools and methods, which helps us ensure that we are giving you and our clients the best possible experience

We will use your account information and internal identifiers to identify the data that is relevant to your request and respond to you

Detect and prevent fraudulent activity

We use your IP address to ensure your location matches the location of the panel that you joined, and we sometimes repeat questions during surveys to check for inattention or other indicators of poor quality responses

In order to use your personal data in the ways described above, we may share it within YouGov, with trusted third parties who provide services to us, and on rare occasions with clients (but only if you have agreed to that specifically, within the relevant survey). Here is some more information about the types of organisation and what we may share with them:

YouGov is a global organisation. This means that some of the personal data that we collect may be transferred within the YouGov Group of companies, for example when a client wants to run a survey in multiple countries, or our global data teams analyse data from across our global panel.

Our clients

Our business is built on providing clients with anonymised research insights. On occasion, our clients may ask to combine your survey responses with their own data to obtain even greater insights. In such cases you will be asked in the relevant survey if you are willing to provide certain identifying data (such as your email address or a social media handle) to our clients to enable this. Whether you share this data or not is completely up to you – if you do not want to provide the requested data it will have no impact on the points you can earn or your participation in future research opportunities.

We work with trusted service providers that carry out certain functions on our behalf so we can provide our services to you.

These organisations process data on our behalf. They only have access to the personal data that they absolutely need to provide the specific service to us, and in all cases we have contractual safeguards in place to ensure that they do not disclose or use it for any other purposes. In some cases, these organisations (for example our payment processors) may need to process your personal data for their own specific purposes, for example to ensure they are compliant with regulations or laws governing their own sectors.

Our service providers fall within the following categories:

Processors of cash payments, gift cards and other incentives

Data collection technology providers

Cloud data storage

Data centre storage (which is organised by YouGov Services Limited)

Communications platforms and technologies

Online advertising

Our data matching partners

Our data matching partners create and sell consumer classifications that help companies understand the demographics, lifestyles, preferences and behaviours of consumers. This information is valuable to our clients, and if requested we will add this data to the insights we provide to them.

To do this we share certain personal data, such as your name, email address and postcode, so that our partners can match it against their own data and tell us which of their segments you belong to. As with our other service providers, we only share the personal data that our data matching partners need to match our data to theirs, and we have contractual safeguards in place to ensure that they do not disclose or use the data for any other purposes.

As described above, we may purchase data from companies that sell certain types of data that is valuable to us. In some cases, we will pass personally identifiable information to these companies to enable them to match these data sets on our behalf, and pass that matched data back to us. As with our other service providers, we have contractual safeguards in place to ensure that these companies delete the data once the match has been completed and do not disclose or use the data for any other purpose.

Other organisations

These circumstances are unusual, but we may share personal data with other organisations if:

we have to share your information to comply with legal or regulatory requirements (or we reasonably believe that we need to disclose your information for such purposes);

we need to share personal data in order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights, including with our legal and other professional advisors;

we restructure our business or if we buy or sell any business or assets we may share your data with the prospective buyer or seller;

all or substantially all of our company assets are acquired by another party, in which case your data will be one of the transferred assets.

If you don’t want us to make use of your personal data in any of the ways described above, sharing your data with YouGov and using our services is not for you – you should unsubscribe here, or contact us and ask us to do that for you. We need to use your data in these basic ways to be able to give your opinions meaning in the world, and to conduct the research that allows us to exist as a business. Further, if national law requires that you have parental permission to participate with YouGov, you warrant that, by participating with YouGov, you have that permission.

In addition to the uses we describe above, provided you choose to participate as a panellist in this way, we may also share your data with trusted partner organisations. Our partners use this data to create and improve their products and services, and to create audiences for advertisers to target with more relevant communications and propositions. We do not permit these partners to include the data they receive from us in the modelled audience, so you could only be included in an audience modelled from YouGov data if these partners already separately hold information about you. Here is some more information about our partners and what we may share with them:

You have complete control over whether we use your data in this way (i.e. non-anonymously), and you can choose not to participate in these uses at any time by changing your permission settings on your Account page.

How we store and protect your personal data

We know how important it is to protect your personal data while we have it. This section describes some of the measures we take to ensure that it is kept secure.

We do everything we can to protect your personal data from loss or misuse, and from unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration and destruction. This section describes some of the measures we take to ensure that your personal data is secure:

We use data centres that have a high level of physical security measures to host and protect your data and our systems;

We conduct independent penetration tests on an annual basis and are continuously scanning our systems and applications for vulnerabilities in our systems; if you ever think that you have found a security issue or vulnerability in one of our systems please let us know at security@yougov.com;

We use encryption to secure your personal data whilst it is in transit using TLS and in storage using AES256 encryption;

We allow access to attributable data (by which we mean data that directly identifies you) only to those YouGov employees who need it to carry out their job responsibilities, for example our support team to allow them to respond to you when you contact us;

We make security the responsibility of all our employees and we train our staff to identify security risks and protect your data.

Our website may from time to time contain links to and from other websites. If you follow a link to any of those websites, please note that those websites ought to have their own privacy notices and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for those websites. Please check those privacy notices before you submit your information to those websites.

Emails and notifications

This section explains the choices you have when it comes to emails and notifications we may send to you.

If you register as a YouGov panellist, it is integral to your participation that we are able to send you emails and notifications inviting you to participate in research projects, which could be conducted online via survey, by downloading a mobile app, or in person. By its nature most of our research is time-sensitive, and without the ability to notify you that we would like your opinion you’ll be at a disadvantage to other panellists because you’ll miss out on opportunities to share your opinion and earn points.

If you would prefer not to receive these service messages, you will need to withdraw from the panel entirely.

Separately, we may want to send you emails and notifications when your opinions feature in the news, or to encourage you to refer your friends and family to join too. You can opt out of these communications at any time on your Account page on the website.

Cookies and similar technologies

We use “cookies” to improve your experience as you use our website and mobile apps. This section tells you about the cookies that we use, what they do and your choices when it comes to cookies.

Partner cookies

These cookies allow our partners to combine your survey data with their own data using common online identifiers. Our partners use this data to create and improve their products and services, and to create audiences for advertisers to target with more relevant communications and propositions.

You can find more information, including how you can opt-out of this activity, in the ‘Uses of personal data for advanced research and modelling’ section of this privacy notice.

Your choices when it comes to cookies

When you accessed this website you were presented with an alert that notified you of our use of cookies. If you continue to use the website you are agreeing to the use of the cookies described in this notice. However, you can use your browser settings to accept or reject new cookies and to delete existing cookies. The ‘Help’ function within your browser should tell you how, and you can find more about how you can delete and manage cookies at http://www.allaboutcookies.org/. If you are primarily concerned about third party advertising cookies, you can turn these off by going to Your Online Choices at http://www.youronlinechoices.com/uk/your-ad-choices.

You should be aware that restricting the use of cookies may mean that you will not be able to take full advantage of all the features or services available on this website.

Email tracking

Some of the emails we send to you may contain a ‘web beacon pixel’ or tracked links which allows us to identify when you have opened the email and to verify which links contained in the email you have accessed. We use this information to determine which parts of our emails are of most interest to you.

You can delete the pixel by deleting the email. If you do not wish to download the pixel to your computer or other device you can unsubscribe from our mailing list at any time on your Account page on our website.

Your rights

This section explains the rights that you have in relation to the personal data that we hold about you.

Depending on the applicable data protection laws, you may have certain rights in relation to the personal data that we hold about you, which are designed to give you more choice and control over your personal data. These rights are explained below.

Right

What does this mean?

The right to request access to personal data

You can request a copy of the data we hold about you and related information

The right to request rectification of personal data

You can ask us to correct any inaccurate data about you and to complete any incomplete data that we hold about you

The right to request erasure of personal data

You can request that we delete the personal data we hold about you

The right to withdraw consent / unsubscribe

You can withdraw your consent to continued data processing at any time

Exercising your rights

You can exercise any of these rights by using the contact details below. Once you have submitted your request we may contact you to request further information to authenticate your identity (because we want to make sure it is actually you requesting your data) or to help us to respond to your request. Except in rare cases, we will respond to you within 1 month (or, if shorter, the timeframe required by relevant national law) of receiving this information or, where no such information is required, after we have received full details of your request.

Email: your.rights@yougov.com

Mail: The Data Protection Officer

YouGov Plc

50 Featherstone Street
London
EC1Y 8RT
United Kingdom

Lodging a complaint with a regulator

You have the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection regulator where your legal rights have been infringed, or where your data has or is being used in a way that you believe does not comply with data protection regulations. The contact details for the regulator in Hong Kong, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data (PCPD), are available on its website, which also contains details on how to make a complaint. However, we encourage you to contact us before making any complaint and we will seek to resolve any issues or concerns you may have.

How to contact us

If you have questions about this notice, about how we collect, store and use personal data, or if you have a grievance you wish to raise with us, you can contact our Data Protection Officer at dataprotection@yougov.com.

If you have any questions, concerns or feedback of a more general nature, please contact us at supportap@yougov.com.

Language and updates to this notice

In accordance with local data protection laws, this notice is available in English and all other languages in which we conduct research in this country. In the event of any inconsistencies or discrepancies between the English version and any other translated version, the English version shall prevail.

This notice was last updated on the date that appears at the beginning of the notice. While we reserve the right to make changes to this notice at any time, we will inform you by email prior to any changes that materially change or expand the purposes of our use of personal data. Should you object to any future changes, you may close your account by going to your Account page and clicking ‘unsubscribe’.